Well, in the interests of fairness, my workplace is a third-party-run call center with departments contracted to Large Telecom among other companies; I don't know if Large Telecom is forcing its own internal workers back onsite yet.
On the immune-system-atrophy hypothesis, as someone who has lived in wildly varying levels of isolation from other humans, I've never noticed a difference. Granted I'm not someone who pays super close attention, since my immune system has always been pretty solid -- my breakdowns come from overwork, stress, and trying to tough out cold weather in insufficiently warm jackets, not disease. But the common thread between the major respiratory illnesses I have come down with in my life (those being the ones I'm reasonably sure were germ/virus-related) was simply being around large groups of other people in enclosed spaces -- attending daily Mass during flu season, attending college classes ditto, working on a call floor with about 150 other people packed into it.
no subject
On the immune-system-atrophy hypothesis, as someone who has lived in wildly varying levels of isolation from other humans, I've never noticed a difference. Granted I'm not someone who pays super close attention, since my immune system has always been pretty solid -- my breakdowns come from overwork, stress, and trying to tough out cold weather in insufficiently warm jackets, not disease. But the common thread between the major respiratory illnesses I have come down with in my life (those being the ones I'm reasonably sure were germ/virus-related) was simply being around large groups of other people in enclosed spaces -- attending daily Mass during flu season, attending college classes ditto, working on a call floor with about 150 other people packed into it.